“We all want life to be simple and our relationships to be enchanted, and then along comes human frailty. Before we know it, all will be lost,” said postmistress Dorcas Lane to Minnie her maid in one of my favorite BBC productions Lark Rise to Candleford when Minnie asked Dorcas what the phrase Happily Ever After means in affairs of the heart. I submit her answer applies equally today to political affairs including, but not limited to, the most recent admission of human frailty by GOP Rep.-elect George Santos from New York.

I cannot tell a lie, said Santos, as he admitted to lying about a few things in his campaign for serving in Congress for New York’s third congressional district. Hm. Were they little white lies like he really prefers the fresh taste of McDonald’s coffee to the more lauded Starbucks? Or he’s secretly not going to vote for Kevin McCarthy to be Speaker of the House next week when the new Congress is sworn in even though Kevin McCarthy has been mum on the questions regarding Santos. Well, no. Not exactly little white lies from Santos on the campaign trail. Go big, or go home was more his style.

He lied about having college degrees from Baruch College and New York University – he had neither. He also admitted he lied about working directly for the financial firms Citigroup and Goldman Sachs – he had an indirect relationship with them through his company but made misleading statements in his bio. And of course, there’s the whole “Jew-ish” comments by Santos that must leave the Jewish community in his district shaking their heads in awful wonder. To give the devil his due, however, Santos did say he was sorry for his “embellishments.”

“I’m human, I’m flawed, I’m not perfect,” he said in his explanation for his mendacity, but he also said he wasn’t going to step down.

Of course, why should he? Santos had the perfect political role model in another New York politician who lied his way into the White House in 2016 but now has been exiled to Florida as seemingly the only consequence of two impeachments in addition to findings of the January 6th. House Committee that laid the blame for an attempted coup of the US Government squarely on his slumping shoulders, yellow-ish complexion and orange hair. Where have you gone, Merrick Garland – our nation turns its lonely eyes to you, woo woo woo…you who?

I’ve tried to check out of politics during the holiday season by binging The Great British Baking Show and Wednesday on Netflix instead of my usual nerdy news programs, but last night I made the mistake of checking in with them just in time to see the Santos Song of Shame as performed by the singer himself on national news. On top of that disgraceful dissonance, the guy is gay. Which made a sad song sadder for me personally.

Truth telling is a lost art easily manipulated by the words we say and the words we don’t. As the year 2022 makes a loud exit, I commit to continue to honestly call it like I see it in 2023 with a more powerful punch than ever because of my renewed belief in Santa.

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus – Pretty’s sister Darlene and her partner Dawne gave me a brand new pair of boxing gloves for Christmas! I was overjoyed!

Darlene asked me if I thought my mother would have permitted boxing gloves in our home when I originally asked Santa for them as a child if they were pink, and Pretty spoke up for me. I doubt it, she said, but she did always love for Sheila to wear pink.

Happy New Year from Pretty and me – may all your wishes become possibilities, may peace cover the earth, may all those who wander find safe shelter with food to eat and water to drink, may all those who mourn heavy losses be comforted, may the eyes of the blind be opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped. Hallelujah. Amen.

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Slava Ukraini. For the children.